Riverbend Ramblings

Blessed Beyond Measure

Bag Check

You know that wonderful feeling you get when you put your hand in your pocket and find forgotten money? I usually don’t find more than a dollar, but it’s still exciting.

Today I was organizing my purses in the large, clear bag that I store them in and thought I would check each one “just in case” there was a President hiding out. No money, but I found a pair of Brighton earrings and a gold ring tucked away in a small backpack. I have a vague memory of loaning the earrings to the daughter that owns the ring, but not enough of one to blame misplacing them on anyone but myself.


Check your bags, Ladies! Who knows what you will find?

I climbed a mountain

I climbed Mount Washmore yesterday and lived to tell about it. My dryer has been out of commission since a few days before Thanksgiving. The repairman figured out the solution to the problem yesterday on his third visit, and the dryer is now working again after a bad circuit board was replaced. I had worried that the final bill was going to be as much as the cost of a brand new dryer, but we were only charged for one service call, one part, and the cost of labor for installing that one part instead of paying for the multiple visits, parts, and repair attempts. It’s good to know that there are still honest businesses out there who aren’t trying to take advantage of the consumer.
 
Being without a dryer for more than two weeks was a real challenge. Six people go through a lot of clothes in a day, especially when two of them have basketball practice or games almost every day. We live in a deed restricted neighborhood that frowns upon the use of a clothes line, so when I was desparate to dry a load of wash I had to make a trip to use someone else’s dryer. I’m so happy to have a working dryer once again, and I have seven loads of clean, dry laundry from yesterday to prove it. Sometimes I take modern household helpers for granted. I guess if I didn’t have a washer and dryer I would definitely downsize our wardrobes! So much for my pioneer spirit.
 

August…Already?

I took a break from blogging last week and got caught up on some things around the house that had been neglected. Most of my mini projects were simple things that just need tackling every once in a while, like the pantry. It’s the room that seems to get treated as a dumping ground since it’s the first room we enter from the garage. I gutted it and got it all organized last summer, but it was time to tidy it up again. Now we can find what we need. I keep food items along one wall. Paper goods, cleaning supplies, household items, and small appliances are on the shelves on the opposite wall. Apparently I deleted the picture I took of that side of the room, so just imagine that those shelves look nice now, too.

I’ll add some more projects to my to-do list once the kids are back in school. Hopefully we will be sticking to just the fun stuff the next two weeks as they enjoy what’s left of their summer vacation.

 

Friday’s Fave Five ~ 6.21.13

It was pretty quiet at my house this week. The girls were all at our church’s youth camp. Hope and Bryn were campers, and Shay was a junior counselor. Case was happy to have the house (and all the ice cream in the freezer) to himself. Here are five of my favorites from the week.

1. I’m thankful that the girls had a great week at camp. They made lots of fun memories and came home spiritually encouraged. Hope had a little incident one day during the tube pull and slightly imbedded her braces in her cheek for a minute, but she’s a tough cookie and is doing fine now. Bug bites and sunburn are all part of the experience. I’m also thankful for the volunteers who help make our camp such a great one.

2. Peace and quiet. I missed the girls, but they are NOISY!

3. A trip to the salon. There’s nothing like a good color and cut to brighten your week.

3. Date night involved filet, lobster, and a sweet potato. A bit of a splurge, but it was worth it.

4. It rained just about every day this week. Some parts of the country have had severe storms, but we’ve been blessed. One morning it was already 81 degrees when I got up at 5:30. The evening showers cool things off just a tiny bit.

5. I had time to tackle a few projects this week. The three girls share a bedroom and a closet. The closet is a monster. It gives me nightmares. I save everything and pass it down to the next girl. The girls don’t wear a lot of the clothes in the closet because they can’t even see what’s in there. I took everything out, sorted it, and then put back in the essentials. I have five huge trash bags filled with clothes and shoes to donate to the local thrift shop on my next trip to town. After removing all the excess, they each still have plenty to wear. Here are before and after pictures.

Before


After

Now that I can see the floor in the girls’ room, I’m off to shampoo the carpet. I hope you all have a great weekend! You can link up with Susanne and share your favorites from the week here.

Feels Like Fall

The weather is beautiful today! It was 68 degrees early this morning, and now it’s about 85 degrees with very little humidity. I enjoyed spending some time outside earlier; we don’t get too many days like this!

I did a little bit of fall decorating this past weekend. I picked up a couple of signs for about $4 a piece. The first sign pictured below is hanging on the powder room door, and the second one is on the door leading from the kitchen to the pantry.

I also changed switched out the centerpiece on the kitchen table and added a few fall pieces to the table in the foyer. I’ve been using most of these decorations for years and never grow tired of them. Adding these little touches around the house helped get me in the mood for the arrival of my favorite season.

A Little Magic

I’ll never figure out why companies
put adhesive stickers on their products. Maybe it’s just to frustrate people
like me. It’s so hard to get the adhesive off! For instance, take a look at
this cup.

It’s a pretty cup as long as you
don’t look at the large, ugly adhesive oval. I scrubbed it multiple times and tried just about
every remedy I could think of, and then I remembered my trusty M*gic Er*ser.
With the help of a little elbow grease, that adhesive is gone!
 What’s your favorite cleaning helper?

A question for you

Am I the only one who still has her Christmas tree up? I actually haven’t been lazy; we just enjoy it so much that I don’t want to take it down! Maybe this weekend. Or not.

Spring cleaning during spring break

Teachers and principals look forward to spring break just as much, if not more, than their students do. I’ve really been enjoying the much-needed time off. This week while the kids have been sleeping in, I’ve had time to work on some deep-cleaning projects around the house.

This month’s Real Simple magazine had a how-to article about cleaning the refrigerator in 20 minutes.  That sounded easy enough for me to tackle, especially since I was about to go grocery shopping and had a fairly empty fridge.  That 20 minute job took me an hour.

Keeping the laundry room uncluttered is a big challenge for me.  It’s so easy to just close the door and let the clean clothes pile up in there.  In the spirit of full disclosure, here’s what my laundry room has looked like lately.

I took everything out of the room (except the washer and dryer) and gave the room a deep cleaning.  I had purchased one of those special dryer vent brushes a while back and finally used it.  Here’s what the laundry room looks like now after an entire afternoon of cleaning.

The kids each have a basket on the counter labeled with their name on it.  They are supposed to check it each night and put their clothes away, but they have a habit of grabbing one or two items and leaving the rest.  Now if I can just make sure that everything else is folded and put away before starting another load!

I have one more project that I would like to work on this week that involves the patio. Since we’ve had several inches of much-needed rain over the last few days, I haven’t been able to get started on it yet. I might just have to go shopping instead, since that’s an indoor activity. 🙂

Are you tackling any spring cleaning projects this week?

Progress in the kitchen

The new-to-us fridge is in place.
The aroma of potato soup from the slow cooker fills the room.
A month’s worth of coupons have been clipped and filed in my coupon box. I haven’t been using as many coupons since I started doing a lot of shopping at Aldi, but I still use enough of them at other stores to make clipping them worth the effort. The leftovers are now headed for the recycling bin.The kitchen is sparking clean now. The question is… will it stay that way through the weekend? 🙂